Later in 1832, Deroin was part of a group of working women who, in protest at the Saint-Simonites hierarchical[1] and religious nature[2] left the group, and became supporters of the socialist Charles Fourier. They began publishing La Femme Libre, the first newspaper for women in France,[1] for which she wrote under the pseudonym Jeanne Victoire.[2]

During this period, Deroin qualified as a schoolteacher. From 1834, she focussed on this work, and on bringing up her children and those of Flora Tristan.[1]

Deroin was a prominent figure during the Revolutions of 1848, campaigning on the rights of women and against the exploitation of children and harsh treatment of convicts.[2] With other Fourierist women such as Pauline Roland, Eugenie Niboyet and Desirée Gay, she launched a socialist feminist newspaper and club, the Voix des Femmes. She personally led calls for women's suffrage. The group was soon forced to close, but Deroin worked with Gay to found the Association Mutuelle des Femmes and Politique des Femmes newspaper.[1] The organisation gave free courses to working women.[2]Politique des Femmes soon found itself unable to raise a 5,000 franc security bond required by the government.[1] Deroin replaced it with Opinion des Femmes, but this lasted only one issue.[2]

The National Assembly gave her and Gay 12,000 francs to form an association of women seamstresses making ladies' underwear,[1] and a fraternal association along a watered-down version of her proposal was initially able to link together more than one hundred existing organisations. Deroin was elected to its Central Committee, alongside Roland.[2] However, the Association was gradually repressed by the Government, and in May 1850, its offices were raided, forty-six members being arrested.[1]

In 1862, Deroin founded a boarding school for children of French exiles, aiming to admit even the poorest children, but the project did not prove financially viable. In 1871, she was granted a small pension by the new Government of France. Although she remained in London, she kept up a correspondence with socialist feminists and women's suffrage campaigners in France, such as Léon Richer, Madame Arnaud and Hubertine Auclert.[1]